


Trust Fall

by KiranInBlue



Series: Seek the Stars (Vetra/Ryder Shorts) [3]
Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Discussion of Grief, F/F, Jealousy, Mild angst but ultimately fluffy, Ryder flirted with everyone but it's our favorite smuggler who stole her heart, Trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:34:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25309828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KiranInBlue/pseuds/KiranInBlue
Summary: Vetra's over the moon when Ryder tells her that this thing between them is real. But Ryder has a history of being a flirt, and before they make anything official, Vetra wants some answers.(Extension of the scene on Kadara.)
Relationships: Vetra Nyx/Female Ryder | Sara
Series: Seek the Stars (Vetra/Ryder Shorts) [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1765015
Comments: 4
Kudos: 33





	Trust Fall

Vetra isn’t prone to babbling, but when Sara says she  _ likes  _ her, that Vetra is more than a friend, Vetra can’t seem to help herself. 

“Really?” she says, and withers inside at the insecurity in her voice. “I didn’t want to assume. I mean,  _ me _ \--!” 

And when Sara leans down and kisses her, Vetra is grateful to be saved from her own fumbling. Turians are not built to kiss -- working between two sets of mandibles would be difficult and uncomfortable, to say the least -- but Sara’s lips are surprisingly forceful even in their softness, and Vetra feels her heart jump to her cowl. 

“How’s that for proving it?” Sara murmurs when she breaks away. 

Vetra smiles at her and slides her talons along the back of Sara’s head to pull her down again. “I’m convinced.”

This next kiss lasts longer. Vetra’s not sure if she’s any good at kissing, but she makes a concentrated effort to relax her own stiff lips under Sara’s touch, and to respond with a precise amount of pressure that she hopes is not too harsh or too soft. She entwines her talons in Sara’s hair and tries to match each movement of Sara’s mouth with her own. Perhaps she manages to kiss well, because Sara does not break away and declare that she’s changed her mind. 

But Vetra can’t relax fully into the kiss, and reluctantly, she pulls back. “Hang on. I’ve just got a few more questions. Just to make sure we’re on the same page here.” 

Sara makes a disgruntled sound of protest, but she rolls back on her elbow and wipes at her mouth. Vetra is surprised at the effect the sight has on her; humans are the only sentient species she knows of that involve their mouths so much in sexual relations, and the knowledge that Sara’s mouth was on  _ her  _ shoots a spark right through her entire body. 

“Fiiiine,” Sara mumbles reluctantly. “I suppose we shouldn’t get too carried away anyway. Drack’s still waiting at the Nomad. He’ll get grumpy if we leave him there while we make out.” 

Vetra imagines Drack standing by the Nomad with his signature irritated expression when they get back, and she lets out a short, awkward laugh.

Sara grins down at her. “If you knew you were going to ask me out -- so to speak -- why did you take me somewhere where we needed a chaperone, anyway?” 

“Liam said that humans consider hot springs romantic.” She gestures in front of her, where dozens of hot springs dot the landscape below them. “So . . . hot springs. Just happens that Kadara is also populated with exiles and scavengers who wouldn’t hesitate to give us a bad time.” 

“Ah. Well, uh, you do realize that when we use hot springs on dates, we usually . . . get in them? You know, like, bathe?” 

“Oh,” says Vetra. “That won’t work here. The water’s on fire.” 

“Yeah.” 

“Well, shit. I guess I should have done my research better. And here I thought I was being so clever.”

She keeps her primary tone casual, light, but she can hear tension in her own subvocals. She can’t seem to stop herself; she just wants Sara to see her as someone who’s smart, and collected, and useful, not some sort of bumbling idiot who only half understands other species. 

Sara chuckles. “It’s cool. This is an amazing view. And, honestly, you could have asked me out in a sewer and I would have said yes.” 

That makes Vetra’s heart twist. She brings up a talon to catch Sara’s hand and hold it in hers. “Well. I’m glad I did better than a sewer.” 

“You did. A  _ lot  _ better than a sewer,” Sara says warmly, and leans down to give Vetra another kiss. “Now. You said you had questions?” 

“Yeah. Just . . . clarifying our expectations.” Vetra inhales deeply. “Is it just me? I know most humans are monogamous, but that’s not universal. To be honest here, I’m not sure how good I’ll be with something polyamorous.”

“What? No, it’s just you!”

“Really?” Vetra says, feeling her heart leap. “I mean, I’ve heard you’ve been flirting with . . .” She trails off, finding it unexpectedly difficult to name anyone who might otherwise have held Sara’s attention. 

Sara looks chagrined. “I mean, I guess I’m going to have to have a conversation with Peebee.” 

“Oh. I don’t mean to make you break anything you already have going.” She hopes the disappointment doesn’t show on her face, and ignores the way her stomach has twisted up in knots. 

“No, it’s not like that,” Sara says hurriedly. “I, uh . . .” She sighs, and sits up properly. “I flirted with a lot of people right after I came out of cryo. I kind of regret it. No, I  _ super  _ regret it. It was stupid and a really reckless way to run a ship.”

Another uncomfortable twist in Vetra’s stomach. “Why’d you do it?” 

Sara shrugs. “I wasn’t coping real well with everything. I mean, I show up in Andromeda and suddenly my brother’s in a coma and my dad is dead and I’m the Pathfinder and everyone’s lives are hanging on me? I freaked out. And flirting, messing around . . . it helped me feel better. It was a way to ignore my responsibilities, and to feel some kind of thrill that wasn’t abject terror or absolute despair.”

“I see.” 

“I guess it was just some dumb way to feel better. Is that weird?” 

“Maybe a little,” Vetra admits. “But grief is weird. I’ve seen weirder coping skills.” 

“At least it wasn’t alcohol,” Sara says, with an awkward smile. 

“True. A sloshed Pathfinder careening through the galaxy would be a way bigger problem than a well-laid Pathfinder.” 

Sara looks suddenly distinctly uncomfortable. “I didn’t -- I didn’t actually sleep with any of them. Or even kiss them. Peebee offered, but I told her no.” 

“Oh,” says Vetra. Some of the knot in her belly relaxes. “But you said you still have to talk to her, huh?” 

Sara doesn’t meet her eyes. “I kind of originally told her I wanted something real with her, and so I wasn’t going to do a casual fling. She said she needed time to think, and that’s where we left it.”

Vetra doesn’t say anything this time. She’s not sure she even could if she wanted to. Her throat suddenly feels so tight it’s a miracle she can even breathe, and her mandibles draw in close around her mouth. 

_ Is this real _ , she’d asked Sara. And when Sara said it was, she’d been so happy. Vetra feels so stupid now. She’s just another ‘real’ thing in a long line of ‘real’ things to Sara. Just another conquest. 

“Hey,” Sara says.

Vetra still doesn’t move or say anything, not trusting herself to hold her collected facade together. She just lies there on the rock, staring at Kadara’s pale yellow sky. 

“Hey,” Sara says again, and now she leans over Vetra, one arm braced on either side of her torso and she meets Vetra’s eyes with a steady gaze. “That was months ago. Everything’s different now. I was wrong about Peebee from the beginning. I thought I wanted her, but Vetra,  _ fuck _ , I know how I feel about you now and I don’t know how I could have ever thought what I felt for anyone else was ever real. It’s you. It’s  _ only  _ you.” 

“I bet you say that to every pretty face,” Vetra says finally, trying for humor. 

“I really,  _ really  _ don’t.” 

“What changed, then?” 

“I did,” Sara murmurs. “Like I said: at the beginning, I was a mess. I didn’t come to Andromeda to be alone, but an hour after getting out of my cryo pod, my brother’s in a coma and my dad is dead and I’m the Pathfinder and I had no one. I . . . that stupid flirting made me feel better. It gave me, like, an illusion of not being alone, and it gave me a thrill. I wanted the butterflies and to feel like I was jumping off a cliff, but I was just trying to feel _something_. It’s different with you.”

“Oh, yeah?” 

Sara nods, and she absently runs a hand through the strands of hair that have broken free from her ponytail. “Eventually, I guess . . . I got a grip. It’s not like I’m over everything that happened, but the shock passed. And suddenly I was staring at all this responsibility, and there was a broken galaxy and I had a crew, and that cliff-jumping thrill wasn’t what I needed or even wanted anymore. And . . . there was you.” 

Sara pauses to give Vetra a small, tentative smile. 

“You’re different,” she says softly. “With you . . . there’s a thrill, sure, but I also feel like you’ll catch me at the bottom of that metaphorical cliff. I don’t have to forget my responsibilities with you, ‘cause my responsibilities don’t scare me when you’re there to have my back. It feels like -- like I feel so  _ right  _ with you, and I can’t imagine what it’d be like if you weren’t there anymore. It’d be like losing my right arm. And I want to have you in my life in any way you’ll let me, for as long as you’ll let me.” 

Vetra does not reply immediately, and she searches Sara’s face: there, she sees wide-eyed earnestness, and a kind of pleading in the quirk of her mouth. One of Sara’s hands move up to clutch at Vetra’s shoulder, and even through the armor, Vetra can feel a desperate pressure. 

Sara continues: “You’re incredible. You’re brilliant, you’re smart as a whip, you’re secure and reliable, you’re funny, you’re a little dangerous, you’re  _ deeply  _ caring, you’re . . . you’re you. Whatever brought you to Andromeda, whatever got you onto my ship -- man, I know it all sucked, and I want to blast anything that ever tries to hurt you ever again, but I’m also just so  _ goddamn  _ glad you ended up in my life. I want you. More than I have ever wanted anyone else. There is no one but you. And I’m sorry I ever made you doubt that.” 

Finally, Vetra’s mandibles relax. “You’re pretty amazing, yourself.” 

Sara smiles back, something nervous and hopeful. “I know I screwed up. Like I said, I really, really regret that stupid flirting. For a lot of reasons, but especially for any way it hurt you or made you feel uncomfortable.”

“It’s okay. I guess I like that I beat out everyone else.” 

Sara chuckles. “I like your competitive streak.” 

“Good. Because that’s not going anywhere.” 

Sara leans to one side, propping her head up on one hand. “What can I do to make it all up to you? If you wanna take it slow, that’s fine. If you want me to write you a book of love poems before you trust me again, I get it. If you just don’t want to do this thing at all . . .” 

Apparently, Sara can’t bring herself to finish that sentence. 

Vetra brings up a hand and draws her long talons along the line of Sara’s face. “I trust you,” she says softly. 

She surprises herself with how much she means it. Trust isn’t something that comes easily to Vetra. Years of experience have left her with nothing but trust in herself and her own senses. But one of the things Vetra trusts most about herself is her people sense. She  _ gets  _ people. It’s one of her best tools as a smuggler and a mercenary: it takes her just a few moments to get a read on someone, and she’s rarely ever been wrong. 

And her people sense tells her that Sara cares. From the first day Vetra stepped on the Tempest, her people sense told her that this was someone who was earnest, someone who gave a shit, someone who would actually make a difference. Someone who was hurting and a little broken, yes, but someone she could trust. 

And . . . she’d known about the flirting from the beginning. Sara hadn’t been particularly subtle, and on a small ship like the Tempest, people talk. That’s why, when Vetra’s gut told her that there was something  _ more  _ to the way that Sara talked to her, she’d been so surprised. She’d dismissed the feeling at first -- wishful thinking, surely. Sara was a flirt, and Vetra was reading too much into it because she had a crush. That’s all there was to it. 

But Vetra hadn’t gotten this far by ignoring her instincts, or by dismissing opportunities. And so, when Sara rescued Sid and told Vetra she cared about her, Vetra decided to believe her. Everything Sara’s telling Vetra now makes sense. Sure, there’s part of Vetra that’s still scared, but it’s the same part of her that watched her mother walk away, the same part of her who waited by the door for days for her father to come home. Vetra’s  _ gut _ , though -- her gut believes every word.

Sara’s smiling down at Vetra, and her hand covers Vetra’s talons against her face. “Okay,” she says quietly. “Just tell me what you want. Anything.” 

“Anything, huh?” Vetra echoes, amused. “Dangerous thing to offer.” 

“Danger doesn’t scare me.” 

Vetra chuckles, and pulls Ryder down for a long, thorough kiss.


End file.
